The fog loomed over the docks, blanketing the wreckage of the battle that had just passed. Scorch marks and broken crates of assorted cargo were strewn across the shipping platform, now useless to those who paid precious lien for them. The red and blue lights from the police cars shone dimly through the mist, entangling with the orange of the street lamps to cast a faint hue on the rows of warehouses lining the area.

Blake held an empty stare at the remnants of the night's events while reclining against the rusting wall. She tilted her head back to bump lightly against her support and closed her eyes. It had happened again: that Torchwick crook she and Ruby had run into was at it again, attempting to steal copious amounts of dust for some unknown reason. What had started as a shopping run with Yang turned into a rather lengthy battle.

She exhaled slowly and opened her eyes again. In her peripheral vision, she saw her partner finish speaking with a detective before sauntering over to her.

"Why is it always the docks?" she asked in her usual, lighthearted tone.

Blake opted not to reply, beginning to lose herself in a maze of thoughts. Undeterred by the silence, Yang strolled up next to Blake and leaned against the wall, "You'd think criminals would want to spice up the location when they planned their next big heist. Maybe a tropical island. It'd give us somewhere nice to go."

Again, Blake offered no response. Her gaze was fixed to the nothingness in front of her and her eyebrows were slightly knit in thought.

Yang, noticing her partner's expression, asked, "Blake, you okay?"

"Yeah," Blake said distractedly. She replayed the events in her head, a nagging little idea tugging at her, refusing to be put to rest. "It's just…"

Blake realized Torchwick had gotten the upper hand just as his fist connected with her jaw. Surprised by the force behind his punch, she staggered backward, lowering the point of her sword. Seeing his opportunity, Torchwick hooked the handle of his cane around Blake's ankle and pulled. Already off balance from his previous blow, Blake fell flat on her back, painfully. While she was incapacitated, the man retreated to his airship, poised to take off with more than a few shipments of dust.

Reorienting herself, she saw Yang still engaged with a group of henchmen across the platform, having her work cut out for her. Turning her attention back to her fleeing opponent, Blake collapsed Gambol Shroud's blade and launched the projectile at the ship. She hoped it would do damage to the hull, or at least provide a distraction for the pilot until reinforcements came to back up the two students.

It proved effective: at every swing of the ribbon, Blake's weapon whirled around the airship, causing it to weave awkwardly through the air. However, the shallow cuts on the hull left by the ballistic scythe weren't doing any real damage. As she pulled on the ribbon to focus her efforts on the window of the cockpit, the ship hovered in place and opened its side cargo door.

"That woman…"

Her figure was shrouded in darkness. She assessed the scene in front of her and stood with her weight on one leg, seeming almost amused by what she saw. Blake readied Gambol Shroud for another attack, but before she could make a move, her new adversary let loose a rain of fireballs on the platform. She instinctively ducked behind a stray storage container as the literal suppressive fire cascaded from the sky.

When the hail stopped, Blake cautiously peeked out from behind her cover to see the woman's movement. The ship had gained a generous amount of altitude; she doubted there was a way she could stop it from her position. The woman in the door of the aircraft, still standing nonchalantly, now tossed a ball of fire back and forth between her hands, increasing its size at each pass. The growing brightness cut through the surrounding mist and cast away the shadows that clung to her. Blake could see her face.

"What about her?"

Her expression carried a graver and eerily sinister air than her body language. The frown she wore was deep seated, and if anyone dared to get close to her, they might have seen a twinge of regret sewn in. The reflection of her fire danced in her narrow eyes, piercing into Blake with such severity that all she could do was gape at her, face washed with confusion and surprise.

The woman unleashed the inferno in her hands, throwing it wildly at the harbor below. Blake's survival instincts took over as she hurled herself back behind her cover, feeling the intense heat burst across the platform. She was vaguely aware of Yang's worried voice calling out to her, instead more focused on the tendrils of fire that spilled over the shipping container and its slightly melting frame.

The worst of the flame subsided quickly and when she dared to move into the open, the ship was nowhere to be seen.

Blake sighed, defeated. She brought her legs up and pulled them to her chest, wrapping her arms around them tightly.

The woman stirred something in her, the ghost of a fleeting memory struggling to remain. The thing that was most unnerving were her eyes, sharp and calculating, and a distinctive shade of amber; not unlike Blake's own.

She would catch herself in the mirror examining them, a gift inherited from an almost stranger. She often wondered if she was doing them justice.

"She looked like my mother…"

I figured there is enough of a resemblance between the two for them to be related. But since it's just the end of Vol. 1, we don't have any backstory on either of them and it's probably not true. Anyway, this is for RWBY Relationship Week, but this is the only one I was able to finish. Oh well. I think this was also my first action sequence, so yay for that.